How and whence any vapour to poifon the angelic frame could rife up; or how it increased and grew up to crime? But all this he paffes over, and, hurrying up that part in two or three words, only tells us, His Pride Par. Loft, book i. His Pride! But how came Satan, while an archangel, to be proud? How did it confift, that pride and perfect holiness fhould meet in the fame perfon? Here we must bid Mr Milton good night; for, in plain terms, he is in the dark about it, and fo we are all; and the moft that can be said about it is, that we know the fact is fo, but nothing of the nature or reafon of it. But to come to the hiftory: The angels fell; they finned (wonderful !) in heaven, and GoD caft them out. What their fin was, is not explicit; but, in general, it is called a Rebellion against GoD: All fin must be so. Mr Milton here takes upon him to give the hiftory of it, as particularly as if he had been born there, and came down hither on purpose to give us an account of it, (I hope he is better informed by this time); but this he does in fuch a manner, as joftles with religion, and fhocks our faith in fo many points neceffary to be believed, that we must forbear to give up to Mr Milton, or muft fet afide part of the facred text, in fuch a manners as will affift fome people to fet it all afide. I mean by this, his invented fcheme of the Son's being declared in heaven to be begotten then, and then to be declared Generaliffimo of all the armies of heaven; and of the FATHER'S fummoning all the angels of the heavenly hoft to fubmit to him, and pay him homage. The words are quoted already, page 13. I must own the invention, indeed, is very fine; the images exceeding magnificent, the thoughts rich and bright, and, in fome refpect, truly fublime; but the authorities fail moft wretchedly, and the mif-timing of it is unfufferably grofs, as is noted in the introduction of this work; for Chrift is not declared the SON OF GOD but on earth. It is true, it is fpoken from heaven, but then it is fpoken as perfected on earth. If it was at all to be affigned to heaven, it was from eternity; and there indeed his eternal generation is allowed: but to take upon us to fay, that on a certain day; for fo our poet affumes, When on a day, "As heav'n's great year brings forth, th'empyreal hoft "Of angels, by imperial fummons call'd, "Forthwith from all the ends of heav'n appear'd." Par. Loft, book v. This is indeed too grofs. At this meeting, he makes GOD declare the Son to be that day begotten, as before. Had he made him not begotten that day, but declared General that day, it would be reconcileable with Scripture, and with fense; for either the begetting is meant of ordaining to an office, or elfe the eternal generation falls to the ground: and if it was to the office (Mediator), then Mr Milton is out in afcribing another fixed day to the work; fee book x. But then the declaring him that day is wrong chronology too; for Chrift is declared the Son of God with power, only by the refurrection of the dead; and this is both a declaration in heaven and in earth, Rom. i. 4. And Milton can have no authority to tell us, there was any declaration of it in heaven before this, except it be that dull authority called Poetic Licence, which will not pafs in fo folemn an affair as that. But the thing was neceffary to Milton, who wanted to affign fome caufe or original of the Devil's rebellion; and fo, as I faid above, the defign is well laid: It only wants two trifles, called Truth and Hiftory; fo I leave it to ftruggle for itself.. This ground-plot being laid, he has a fair field for the E Devil to play the rebel in; for he immediately brings him in, not fatisfied with the exaltation of the SON OF GOD. The cafe must be thus: Satan, being an eminent archangel, and, perhaps, the highest of all the angelic train, hearing this fovereign declaration, that the SON OF GOD was declared to be Head or Generaliffimo of all the heavenly hoft, took it ill to fee another put into the high ftation over his head, as the foldiers call it he, perhaps, thinking himself the fenior officer, and difdaining to fubmit to any but to his former immediate fovereign. In fhort, he threw up his commiffion, and, in order not to be compelled to obey, revolted, and broke out in open rebellion. : All this part is a decoration noble and great; nor is there any objection to be made against the invention, because a deduction of probable events: but the plot is wrong laid, as is obferved above, becaufe contradicted by the Scripture-account, according to which Chrift was declared in heaven, not then, but from eternity, and not declared with power but on earth, viz. in his victory over Sin and Death, by the refurrection from the dead: So that Mr Milton is not orthodox in this part, but lays an avowed foundation for the corrupt doctrine of Arius, which fays, There was a time when Chrift was not the Son of God. But to leave Mr Milton his flights, I agree with him in this part, viz. That the wicked or finning angels, with the great archangel at the head of them, revolted from their obedience, even in heaven itself: that Satan began the wicked defection, and, being a chief among the heavenly hot, confequently carried over a great party with him, who altogether rebelled againft God: that upon this rebellion, they were fentenced by the righteous judgment of God to be expelled the holy habitation This, befides the authority of Scripture, we have visible teftimonies of from the devils themselves : their influences and operations among us every day, of which mankind are witneffes; in all the merry things they do in his name, and under his protection, in almoit every scene of life they pafs through, whether we talk of things done openly, or in masquerade; things done in or out of it; things done in earnest or in jest. But then, what comes of the long and bloody war that Mr Milton gives fuch a full and particular account of, and the terrible battles in heaven between Michael, with the royal army of angels on one hand, and Satan with his rebel hoft on the other; in which he fuppofes the numbers and ftrength to be pretty near equal; but at length brings in the Devil's army, upon doubling their rage, and bringing new engines of war into the field, putting Michael and all the faithful army to the worft, and, in a word, defeats them: for though they were not put to a plain flight, in which cafe he must, at leaft, have given an account of two or three thoufand millions of angels cut in pieces and wounded, yet he allows them to give over the fight, and make a kind of retreat; fo making way for the complete victory of the SON OF GOD. Now this is all invention, or at least a borrowed thought from the old poets, and the fight of the Giants against Jupiter, fo nobly defined by Ovid, almost two thousand years ago: And there it was well enough; but whether poetie fancy fhould be allowed to fable upon Heaven or not, and upon the King of Heaven too, that I leave to the fages. By this expulfion of the Devils, it is allowed by most authors, they are, ipfo fatto, ftripped of the rectitude and holiness of their nature, which was their beauty and perfection; and being ingulphed in the abyfs of irrecoverable ruin, (it is no matter where), from that very time they loft their angelic beautiful form, commençed ugly frightful monfters and devils, and became evil doers, as well as evil fpirits,-filled with an horrid malignity and enmity againft their Maker, and armed with an hellish refolution to fhew and exert it on all occafions; retaining however their exalted fpiritous nature, and having a vast extenfive power of action; all which they can exert in nothing else but doing evil: for they are intirely divefted of either power or will to do good; and even in doing evil, they are under restraints and lmitations of a fuperior power, which it is their torment, and perhaps a great part of their hell, that they cannot break through. CHA P. V. What became of the DEVIL, and his host of fallen fpirits after their being expelled from heaven; and his wandering condition till the Creation; with fome more of Mr Milton's abfurdities on that fubject. H AVING thus brought the Devil, and his innumerable legions, to the edge of the bottomlefs pit, it remains, before I bring them to action, that fome inquiry fhould be made into the pofture of their affairs immediately after their precipitate fall, and into the place of their immediate refidence: for this will appear to be very neceffary to Satan's history, and indeed, fo as that, without it, all the farther account we have to give of him will be inconfiftent and imperfect. And first, I take upon me to lay down fome fundamentals, which, I believe, I fhall be able to make out hiftorically, though perhaps not fo geographically as fome have pretended to do. 1. That Satan was not immediately, nor is yet, locked down in the abyfs of a local hell, fuch as is fuppofed. by fome, and fuch as he fhall be at last; or that, 2. If he was, he has certain liberties allowed him for excurfions into the regions of this air, and certain fpheres of action, in which he can or does move, to do, like a very Devil as he is, all the mischief he can, and of which we fee fo many examples both about us, and in us: in the inquiry after which, I fhall take occafion to examine, whether the Devil is not in most of us fometimes, if not in all of us one time or other. That Satan has no particular refidence in this globe or earth where we live: that he rambles about a |